Roswell skeptics. Modern day mythology?

originally posted by: joelr
And does he think people were so stupid in 1947 that people would pass around a piece of an actual ufo ship at a meeting? "Hey guys check out this alien metal, let me know if you get infected with any alien viruses or nano-technology".

Jesse Marcel really thought it was alien though!

He saw the printed designs from the tape, and thought it was alien writing, and he tried to convince Irving Newton it was alien writing. This is about the printed designs on the tape which apparently left some faded impressions on the sticks:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

originally posted by: Ectoplasm8
Professor Charles Moore Affidavit:
"I have specific recollection of reinforcing tape applied to the seams of the reflectors that had some symbols like arcs, flowers, circles, and diamonds. They were pinkish in color."

books.google.com...=onepage&q=arcs&f=false

Note on the revised 307C/AP blueprint, there is a mention of using Scotch brand tape and placement on the seams of the target:

"SHALL BE SCOTCH ACETATE FILM TAPE (?) AS MADE BY MINNESOTA MINING & MFG CO ST. PAUL MINN OR EQUAL."

This has been discussed by others before, but Scotch and other brand acetate tapes came in different printed designs:

This is Irving Newton's affidavit from pages 291-293 of the 993 page Air Force report published in 1994 (I cropped out the blank section and the signature section):

"while I was examining the debris,Major Marcel was picking up pieces of the target sticks and trying to convince me that some notations on the sticks were alien writings. These were figures on the sticks lavender or pink in color, appeared to me weather faded markings with no rhyme or reason. He did not convince me these were alien writings."
-Irving Newton

Also interesting is that apparently Irving Newton is the only one on the base who had seen that kind of radar target before. He had seen them elsewhere but the base personnel were really unfamiliar with that kind of target, because according to Newton's affidavit they "were used mostly on special projects and overseas". So he does seem to confirm that while it was something he was familiar with, perhaps nobody else on the base was familiar with that type of radar target.

a reply to: Arbitrageur


Right but one of those 2 men was laughing at the debris and they still could see what it generally was a pile of.
I'm saying if an actual egg shaped 15 ft ufo crashed (the 2nd crash site) with alien bodies there would be little doubt it was real and people would keep some distance until hazmat suits arrived. No one would take some metal from that crash and pass it around at a meeting.
The project Mogal debris must have looked very much like a man made hack job at getting some detectors up into the atmosphere.
Marcel was probably only a tiny bit serious about scotch tape being alien. I don't know the extent to how serious he was but he must have generally realized what was what.


If someone had a ufo and bodies they would not be like "hey let's bring this to my office and give it a look over". "maybe take some pics with the aliens sitting on my lap". They must have been fairly confident this was earthly material.

originally posted by: joelr
Marcel was probably only a tiny bit serious about scotch tape being alien. I don't know the extent to how serious he was but he must have generally realized what was what.

I disagree, I think Marcel was completely serious about the alien writing. It's not clear if he realized the symbols on the sticks were left there by the tape, Newton's affidavit refers to the symbols. Marcel showed some debris to his son and somehow also convinced his son it was alien.

Part of the argument back and forth between skeptics and believers goes something like this:
-If Marcel says it was alien, we must take him seriously, because he's a high ranking military man in charge of security for nuclear weapons, and he was subsequently promoted so he can't be the idiot skeptics claim he is for thinking radar reflectors and balloon stuff was part of an alien space ship.

-My response is that this is an eye-opener on several things. First, he's only human so he's subject to misperceptions like the rest of us, we are all capable of those. But I think his problems went beyond that, like calling the material that was found in many small pieces scattered over a huge debris field indestructible. To say the analytical capabilities of a man that would make such an obviously self-contradicting statement are lacking would be an understatement. As for his promotion, he apparently had never seen such a radar target before like Irving Newton had, so his inability to identify it shouldn't prevent a promotion if his other duties were carried out proficiently. But the statements he makes about the debris really do paint him as sort of an idiot in my opinion, like when he says the foil was hit with a sledgehammer, and nothing happened to it. What an extremely stupid thing to say. I hit a piece of foil with a sledgehammer too, and nothing obvious happened to it, what did he expect to happen? It's already pretty flat, so a blow with a sledgehammer won't make it look much flatter. Apparently he thought that was somehow supporting evidence for the material being indestructible, but it's more like evidence that he's not the sharpest tool in the shed.

So I'm completely unconvinced by the argument that this man Marcel was in charge of security for nuclear weapons so we can and should take him seriously, because we don't put idiots in charge of such important responsibilities. I see it more or less the opposite way, that apparently we did have a man in charge of nuclear weapon security who had at the very least some extremely severe analytical shortcomings, so it doesn't fill me with confidence about the human factor related to nuclear weapons.

Have you listened to his interviews talking about the debris field filled with lots of little pieces of the indestructible material? He sounded serious about that too and I don't think he had the slightest clue how idiotic that sounds, and apparently neither did some Roswell believers which tells you something about their analytical capabilities as well. In that interview he also said the debris was not from this earth, and he didn't sound like he was joking even a little bit, he sounded completely serious.

"It was not anything from this Earth, that I'm quite sure of"
-Jesse Marcel, time 4:07

Roswell ,the interview with Jesse Marcel SR


Listen to him say he's quite sure it wasn't from earth and tell me if you still think he wasn't serious.

Sorry, but I found Newtons affidavit highly suspect.

This is what he told Moore in 1979 , which was published in the first roswell book 1980:

" It was cut and dried. I had sent up thousands of them and there is no doubt that what I was given was parts of a ballon. I was later told that a Major from Roswell had identified the stuff as a flying saucer.....(Moore) But wouldn’t the people at Roswell have been able to identify a balloon on their own? Newton: They certainly should have. It was a regular Rawin sonde.They must have seen hundreds of them.

no word about interacting with Marcel , nothing about the tape.
If he was misquoted, he could have put things straight when he was interviewed ten years later by Kevin Randle, where he confirmed his testimony.

a reply to: TheMadScientist2
I don't understand your concern with Newton's statements, since that passage from the book seems consistent with his affidavit.

I think what some people have a problem believing is that the man in charge of nuclear weapon security for the US was somewhat of an idiot. I can understand their concern and I share it, but that doesn't mean Newton was lying, his affidavit sounds credible to me, as well as the quote from the book. Some people decide that it's impossible Marcel was that much of an idiot because they would never put someone that dumb who can't tell an unusual balloon and radar target debris when he sees it in charge of US nuclear weapon security.

But it seems to me that Marcel was that clueless, and they did have someone who seems rather dumb in charge of nuclear weapon security, who couldn't even figure out if you find thousands of little pieces of something, that means it wasn't indestructible as he said, so we need consider no other testimony than Marcel's contradictory statements to figure out he's not too bright to say something like that. Newton has no role at all in that.

originally posted by: TheMadScientist2
no word about interacting with Marcel , nothing about the tape.
If he was misquoted, he could have put things straight when he was interviewed ten years later by Kevin Randle, where he confirmed his testimony.

Irving Newton was a weather forecaster in
Fort Worth Texas and was introduced to Marcel when he arrived with Gen. Ramey in Fort Worth to identify the debris. You can see Newton posing with the same debris as Marcel:


So there was physical interaction in Fort Worth between Marcel and Newton. Newton has also said:

During the ensuing years I have been interviewed by many authors, I have been quoted and misquoted.  The facts remain as indicated above.  I was not influenced during the original interview, nor today, to provide anything but what I know to be true, that is, the material I saw in General Ramey's office as the remains of a balloon and a RAWIN target

The tape with markings is secondary to the debris that Brazel described. This is what people need to focus on, the baseline fundamental findings first. Sticks, paper, rubber, and tinfoil. The same that Marcel describes. You also can't skip over the fact that 90 miles away to the south in this exact time period, balloons were being launched carrying this exact material.

Friedman had a $take in the story. So it's understandable, in a way, why he continued to promote this. Afterall, when he learned of Roswell, he was giving UFO lectures at colleges. He must have seen dollar signs with this story.

Forget about basing your belief on someone's opinion. Do your own investigation and apply a little logic and common sense.

• Sticks, Rubber, Paper, Foil = Balloons with Radar Targets
• Sticks, Rubber, Paper, Foil = Alien Spacecraft

Just one of those astronomical coincidences I guess?

originally posted by: Arbitrageur

-My response is that this is an eye-opener on several things. First, he's only human so he's subject to misperceptions like the rest of us, we are all capable of those. But I think his problems went beyond that, like calling the material that was found in many small pieces scattered over a huge debris field indestructible. To say the analytical capabilities of a man that would make such an obviously self-contradicting statement are lacking would be an understatement. As for his promotion, he apparently had never seen such a radar target before like Irving Newton had, so his inability to identify it shouldn't prevent a promotion if his other duties were carried out proficiently. But the statements he makes about the debris really do paint him as sort of an idiot in my opinion, like when he says the foil was hit with a sledgehammer, and nothing happened to it. What an extremely stupid thing to say. I hit a piece of foil with a sledgehammer too, and nothing obvious happened to it, what did he expect to happen? It's already pretty flat, so a blow with a sledgehammer won't make it look much flatter. Apparently he thought that was somehow supporting evidence for the material being indestructible, but it's more like evidence that he's not the sharpest tool in the shed.

So I'm completely unconvinced by the argument that this man Marcel was in charge of security for nuclear weapons so we can and should take him seriously, because we don't put idiots in charge of such important responsibilities. I see it more or less the opposite way, that apparently we did have a man in charge of nuclear weapon security who had at the very least some extremely severe analytical shortcomings, so it doesn't fill me with confidence about the human factor related to nuclear weapons.

Have you listened to his interviews talking about the debris field filled with lots of little pieces of the indestructible material? He sounded serious about that too and I don't think he had the slightest clue how idiotic that sounds, and apparently neither did some Roswell believers which tells you something about their analytical capabilities as well. In that interview he also said the debris was not from this earth, and he didn't sound like he was joking even a little bit, he sounded completely serious.


Listen to him say he's quite sure it wasn't from earth and tell me if you still think he wasn't serious.

Yes he sounds serious. I do not believe he is being truthful at all. Sometime in the late 1970's he was approached about a book being written about a ufo crash and I believe he enjoyed supporting that narrative.
It's clear the crash site contained many things like tape, rubber, sticks and wood and like every other false narrative about Roswell he's simply doing the same thing. Talk about "weird" metal and simply do not mention other objects found.
Although one of the original press releases said "no metal parts" and now he's on about a big piece of metal, forgetting about that he's just doing that same thing Friedman does. Speak only about strange metal.

I see where he was trying to convince the other officer it was alien wreckage while looking over the debris in an office. But the other officer was laughing. How serious Marcel was I do not know?

More évidence Marcel is lying in that video interview is this statement he made in 1947:

"We] spent a couple of hours Monday afternoon [July 7] looking for any more parts of the weather device", said Marcel. "We found a few more patches of tinfoil and rubber."[9]"

which is in this long report:
www.afhra.af.mil...


I don't know the extent of how much he was involved in the Roswell books, how much he was paid, what the deal with the video interviews he did? Was he trying to establish a career, I don't know. But back then no one was interested in tin foil, rubber, tape and such and he's clearly steering the description of the debris in a specific direction. So I think it's all a work.


Might as well bring this up as well:

"There was no sign of any metal in the area which might have been used for an engine, and no sign of any propellers of any kind, although at least one paper fin had been glued onto some of the tinfoil. "

No metal. So he was simply on In Search Of telling Spock tall tales. I think this was the original name of the show - In Search Of Tall Tales...

a reply to: joelr

I had not heard of this before about rubber and tinfoil thanks for sharing